Preparing For Google Algorithm Changes In 2018+

Preparing For Google Algorithm Changes In 2018+

Recently, I had the opportunity to host an event at Google in San Francisco called, Pubtelligence. It brought together a diverse mix of digital publishers of all shapes, sizes, and experience levels. At this event, no speaker captured the attention of everyone in the audience quite like Illya Grigorik, a member of Google’s webmaster team (Search).

He discussed how publishers should be preparing for Google algorithm, and search ranking changes, in 2018 and beyond.

This came as no surprise. Google’s search algorithm and webmaster practices are the subject of constant rumors, news, and evaluation. This is all for good reason.

Publishers rely on Google’s search product to help them drive visitors to their properties. Businesses have been built and conquered on the search giant’s shifts in algorithm changes in the past, and no one wants to fall behind.

Below, I’ll discuss all the important things that Illya Grigorik covered in his presentation. I’ll also read between the lines on a few things he discussed and shared with everyone present. Furthermore, I’ll boil it all down to a few clear directives for digital publishers that want to ensure they are staying ahead of shifts and trends in Google search changes.

Looking at Google search trends for 2018 and beyond

There seemed to be several key themes heading into the presentation on where Google would be directing a lot of their attention in the coming 12-18 months.

It’s important to keep in mind that Google is not rolling out search algorithm updates quite like they have in the past (more on those Google search changes here). With the inclusion of A.I., rolling updates, and changes in the way paid results are displayed, changes in Google search are now much more related to keeping up with the way Google delivers results than the way they rank properties.

Above, you can see the types of things that Google webmaster teams are emphasizing to digital publishers right now. There is a lot of focus at Google on mobile (more on those specifics here) — especially in emerging markets — and how they deliver the right kinds of results and information to these users.

“Contrary to popular belief, we actually are trying to reduce the amount of time that users spend on our search results page. We want them to find the information they are looking for quickly; which means less time on the search results page” – Illya Grigorik, Google Webmaster Team

More specifically, they are emphasizing how they can deliver better results to these users faster and more efficiently. This includes a very strict focus on security as well.

You know the future is mobile, right?

For those paying attention, it should come as no surprise that Google is continuing their push towards improving search satisfaction for mobile users. This is something publishers have, on average, been slow to adapt to since many independent publishers spend most of their time browsing their own sites on desktop.

This led into a much deeper conversation about how Google has been gathering data about how quickly user behavior is shifting on mobile. Not only are more users on mobile devices when using Google search, but how they browse mobile results is changing too.

Google is very aware of these changes; especially in emerging markets. There is a lot of new users coming online in countries, like India, that are leveraging mobile devices. Google is ensuring that their flagship technology is equipped to meet the needs of these users.

Many publishers have scoffed at some of these trends when Google has brought them up before, but I’ll tell you why it’s very important to pay attention to Google when they are talking about this…

The changes that Google makes to adapt to these markets and changing mobile behavior will dramatically impact publishers; regardless of who their target visitor is.

As Google adapts to meet the needs of new users, publishers positioned to provide content in parallel with what Google is seeking will be poised for major payoffs in traffic.

So, to recap… even if these emerging markets seem to be irrelevant to many publishers, it is very important to pay attention to how Google is adapting to meet the needs of these markets. These search algorithm and ranking changes will impact publishers regardless of who their audience is.

Google is actually going to make speed a ranking factor

That’s right. Until now, Google has really relied mostly on key visitor experience metrics to determine if visitors were being affected by something like site speed.

However, in July of 2018 Google will be adding speed as a small ranking signal.

Unfortunately, Google has realized that most publishers are not very good at measuring or fixing speed issues.

Their own tools actually kind of make it harder for some publishers that see things like Google PageSpeed Tool’s as something they should be optimizing… HINT: Google says that’s not important.

What is important?

Understanding and improving speed the way Chrome sees it, in the developer tools waterfall.

When is mobile-first going to be a thing?

For those unfamiliar with the upcoming shift for Google to move their entire search index to mobile-first, here are the cliff notes:

Google currently has two search indexes (mobile and desktop)

They are going to combine them into one index soon

This index will crawl the mobile version of a page first

This means the mobile version of your site will be the one crawled, not desktop

You can read more about how this will work by checking out our previous article on this topic (above).

The mobile-first index was officially rolled out in late March 2018. It is continuing its rollout now.

Google has said that there are few things to pay close attention to with these major changes.

Here are the key takeaways for publishers on this subject…

Have a mobile site no matter what

Don’t let the site be a dumbed down version of your desktop site

Make sure all elements of your site are crawlable on mobile (Google mentioned this was an issue they were seeing)

Make sure that structured data, meta descriptions, tags, etc. are all setup the same on mobile as they are on desktop (some sites only have this on the desktop version of their site right now)

In many ways, mobile-first is not a major change that should be feared. However, all publishers should be making sure their I’s are dotted and T’s are crossed in the next 6-9 months; as having a mobile version of your site that is unequal to the desktop version in any way could be damaging.

User experience will drive innovations in Google algorithm changes

In line with their comments earlier about trying to get searchers to spend less time on the results page, Google is hoping that by delivering fast, rich results they can improve overall search satisfaction for users.

This is something publishers have been skeptical of since the start. Rich snippets and Knowledge Graph have been cannibalizing content from publishers for a while.

Regardless of how publishers feel about it, this trend is only going to continue.

Ultimately, it looks as though the publishers most ready to adapt to accommodate these types of searches will be best positioned to capture traffic for the associated inquiries — even if that means that Google still eats up some potential pageviews in the process.

Google is doubling down on these enhanced forms of results for searchers. They debuted some new forms of rich mark-up for Google images during the presentation and revealed that still, very few digital publishers are leveraging structured data market (or Schema.org markup) to the fullest extent that they could be.

There are a lot of really simple ways to add structured data to your website. For WordPress users, it’s as simple as finding some reliable and user-friendly plugins. For others, it’s as easy as adding some simple code markups to the pages that would likely benefit most from markup.

Google revealed that almost 20% of all search results end up with a searcher clicking on a result and returning to the search results page before the Google Analytics tag even fires on that publisher’s website. This means that there could be an additional 20% added to some publishers bounce rates that they will never know about.

However, it was abundantly clear that this is something Google is keeping a close eye on; and likely penalizing publishers for.

Engagement metrics like DOM interactive — the time it takes for a page to load and a user to interact with it — appears to be far more important than something like an arbitrary page speed number. Google emphasized that they aren’t using any form of page speed scoring to rank or position sites. However, they did emphasize the importance of delivering the content the user is looking for quickly.

This is the motivation behind their AMP initiative. While publishers still remain extremely skeptical of AMP — for caching content and generally earning less revenue — Google is working on improvements to push this technology forward. They want pages to load instantly for searches. This intention is noble.

Unfortunately, AMP still has many flaws for publishers; as it may work better for some than others. However, what publishers can take away from this entire push is that optimizing your site for instant loading and fast ACTUAL speed will pay dividends.

Google is going to make sites convert to HTTPS

A lot of publishers have delayed from moving their site over to HTTPS with an SSL. Most of the reasons for this have passed their utility; as concerns over redirects or ad partners is largely not worth much concern anymore. However, many are frustrated by the fact that Google is emphasizing this change even when many do not collect any user data on their site.

If HTTPS as a search ranking factor wasn’t enough incentive to move your site over in the past, Google revealed their roadmap for how they will begin punishing publishers who fail to add an SSL to their site.

For publishers who have resisted this change for a while, it’s time to make the switch. If you’re concerned about redirects, don’t be, server level redirects and host features make it very simple to handle these challenges. And, any concerns about monetization and ad partners with nonsecure pages, are largely out-dated; as most quality ad providers are now fully-supportive of HTTPS sites.

Note: Ezoic users can have the platform solve this problem for you very easily, contact your rep for details.

Publishers that wait too long for this switch could have their visitors seeing this (below) when browsing in Chrome in the near future…

Making this information actionable

So what should you do in light of all this new information? Good question. As a publisher there a couple of key takeaways…

Emphasize your mobile development (content, UX, everything)

Cross check your site — and ongoing efforts — against parameters for the mobile-first index

Hopefully, some of those items can put you in position to stay ahead of Google algorithm shifts and changes for the next 12-18 months. Interested in learning more about what was discussed at Pubtelligence? Check out the article below that feature content from other sessions during the day…

About The Author

Tyler is an award-winning marketer, SEO expert, successful blogger, and keynote speaker. He has composed content for some of the world's top publications and has over a decade of experience building businesses in the digital space. Tyler is the current Head of Marketing at Ezoic and serves as an SEO and marketing expert for start-up competitions across the U.S.

thanks so far 4 the updates, but i just discovered some delays in using the google console for indexing it seems not to be indexing new blog urls any more. pls are they solutions to these observations??

There is a lot of chatter around who and what it has affected, but the clear takeaway was that it was in-fact broad; meaning it did not specifically target or penalize a specific metric or type of website.

From speaking candidly with the folks at Google, there are not any specific actions a publisher can take to recover from any traffic losses that may have occurred form this update. Reading between the lines, this would suggest that these updates were not really looking at how on-page or domain-level things were configured for the webmaster. It’s more likely that Google has modified the way it reads certain backlinks and measures user experiences from the SERP.

These things would be a little more complex, and something outside of a webmasters immediate control. Long term, the whole, make great content and Google will reward that philosophy will work, but nothing can be done to greatly affect this in the short term.

Google recently updated several patents on the way they track and measure backlinks. This makes me think this was a part of this update; as well as how they measure user behavior from Knowledge Base clicks vs. regular search result clicks.

Hello! Lot of Good information in the Article. Worth reading the article if want to know on how to develop your website according to new trends. With new updates websites definitely deliver outstanding results. Just have to follow the guide. —

Very informative and nice article. Google is famous for its long history of famous algorithm updates, search index changes and refreshes. In January 2018 Google announced that in their next update from July 2018 page speed will become a consideration. As per the research data the security framework is the main key point of Google.

Its future is closely tied to the future of rich data mark-up. Publishers have to realize the risk this poses; while also riding on the back of it. There are not a lot of choices to make for content publishers.

The article is really helpful, I also wrote on my blog about this Panda focuses on the overall quality of your site for the user. To get that quality, use Google’s checklist of questions to ask yourself as a general guide. The Penguin focuses on the backlink profile of your site and now works in a granular, real-time fashion. To respond accordingly, improve your overall backlink profile and delete the spammy link. It is also important to remember that in spite of some initial predictions, Google Disavow Tool still has a place in your SEO strategy. Use this to avoid manual penalties related to manual penalties and manual actions which may be beyond the scope of the penguins, but may still affect your ranking.

The primary thing to remember when composing your website for search engines is to think overall. This means focusing on the exhibit quality of your site, as you did in the past against the small details described in the form of SEO cure-all. After all, there is no such thing as a quick SEO treatment, and anyone who thinks otherwise is probably involved in some Blackhat techniques.

Hey Tyler, definitely enjoyed your post! What are your thoughts on the latest Google Updates (July 2018)? There seemed to be quite a bit of movement on the SERPs, but Google wasn’t very forthcoming with the details.

That is because they have an improved algorithm that calculates search results. Bing and Yahoo, if that is even still going, still lag behind in quantity powerful websites. That is what it all comes down to. Google wants to make sure they control everything inside the algorithm.

Now obviously, it is still an algorithm. It can make mistakes and it can be gamed once you know what it is and which parts to input, bits to avoid and accept. Google will not be having any interdependence on social platforms like Twitter, or Tumblr, they are not going to run.

If you think about how many searches, clothing website gets, it is going to be thousands. Even though they have not made any official SEO effort into ranking their brand, it runs naturally. As a result, people type it in when they want to go straight to the site. People even search Facebook inside Google,

@Tyler Bishop…! I must say it is one of the best blog i have gone through this year…whatever google changes in the algorithm but quality back links plays a major roles in organic ranking. Thanks bro.. Keep sharing

Indexing well in Google is becoming too technical for some webmasters. And I think too much is being asked to webmasters in a short period of time.

Thus a lot of webmasters will not do all that Google is asking, and the result is that a lot of good sites, with very good content, are loosing their ranking positions, vanishing from the SERP. And the websites that now are getting to the top positions in SERP are not necessarily what people are looking for.

I used to find Google very useful. But lately I often find myself frustrated with the results that Google is providing. I am sure there are better content to suit my queries that those websites that Google is showing to me. Sometimes I use Bing, and I finally find what I didn’t find in Google. That is a shame!

After AUG 2018 update, many sites are gone below in their top ranking. I request to Author of this Blog, please update another blog regarding future 2019 SEO algorithms. We will waiting for you next blog.